Letting Go
by Fantasy's-Priestess
Summary: When Scully decides to give William up for adoption, she has to learn how to let go...sadfic with a sorta happy ending, Hints of MSR, AU-ish!


**Hey everyone :) **

**This is a sad little oneshot I got from a dream from in which I was Scully :( Sad stuff, but anyway R&R, and don't judge me too much because this story isn't exactly faithful to how the adoption actually happened. **

**P.S. And also remember I haven't seen most of Season 9 yet, do I'm basically throwing darts in the dark here :P **

**But seriously though, enjoy :) (well don't, because this is supposed to be sad lol)**

Scully sighed dejectedly as she rocked her baby slightly. Her beautiful baby. She looked down at the tiny child in her shaking arms and smiled ever so slightly.

Her William looked _exactly _like his father.

From his high cheekbones to his long nose to his little smile that always made Scully's whole world light up with sunshine. William was a little piece of Mulder that was always with her, even when Mulder himself was not. It was both a blessing and a curse. It could easily be seen as both.

_But I shouldn't be pondering that now…_she thought ever so sadly as she memorized her baby's sleeping face as best she could.

Today was the day she was going to let her baby go.

Lord knows she didn't want to—for all she knows this will be her last and only baby—but she knew it was for the best.

After all, Scully could bring a lot to the table for her baby. She'd be able to raise him right, love him wholly and completely, be disciplined yet fun at the same time…but there was some things that Scully could not provide for her baby. Those things were the things William's adoptive parents, Mr. & Mrs. Parkinson, _could _provide for her baby.

The couple can provide safety for her little one. They can provide a normal life for him. They'd be able to teach him how to ride a bike in a family-friendly neighbourhood without worrying about monsters lurking behind trees. They'd be able to fight back the Boogeyman and the 'little gray monsters' from underneath his bed, without wondering if he actually _was _seeing monsters under his bed. They'd be able to provide a beautiful home with a white picket fence and a garden that he helped his mother plant.

The Parkinson's can provide a life for her baby that she'd never be able to.

And that killed Scully inside.

She let out a shaky sigh and looked down at her baby. _This is for the best…_she resolved. But with every minute, every _second _that passed her and William by, every second she had to wait for her baby's new parents to come take him away, her resolve shook.

Any second now, Scully was so sure she would just walk away and never do this whole ordeal again…but every time she thought this she'd look down at her baby and she remembered why she was doing this. She was doing this because she loved her baby. She was doing this because her baby deserved so much better than her. She was doing this because she loved her baby enough to let him go…

Which she tended to forget every time she looked down at her beau—no, her _perfect _baby.

She looked down again and smiled as he began to squirm slightly in her arms. This meant he was going to wake up soon, which is both a blessing and a curse. A blessing because she wanted to be able to see William's eyes one last time, yet a curse because those two sparkling hazel eyes made her resolve break more than it ever has.

Scully's thin lip trembled slightly when William's tiny eyes opened to see the world around him. Those eyes were so darling that if she could she'd stare into them forever. _But I can't do that…_Scully thought as her lip began to tremble even harder. It trembled so much she had to bite her lip and curse her wet eyes. She blinked rapidly and readjusted in her chair, hoping to distract herself…

But how was she going to be distracted away from those sparkling eyes?

William was now looking directly at her and he gave her one of those adorable smiles, from which you could see the beginnings of teeth beginning to grow. Scully couldn't help but smile back at him instinctively, something she always did because she was always happy when William awoke, crying or otherwise.

_It's strange, _Scully mused as she shifted again so she could look down at William more comfortably, _I've made so many mistakes in my lifetime…I've tried to dispel Mulder's theories more then I can count, I've hurt my family, I've hurt Mulder—I even shot him! I've attempted to leave Mulder and the X-Files more than once and I've entertained the idea more than I care to say. But…_Scully thought, grinning at her growing child, _But, somehow, I've done one thing perfectly right in my whole life…this handsome bundle of joy. _She thought, biting her lip all the harder as the wetness in her eyes threatened to escape._ And now he has to go, and be someone else's perfect child…_

"Ms. Scully?"

Scully quickly looked up and saw what she had dreaded ever since she entered this horrid place—the nun that would lead her to her son's new parents.

"Ms. Scully? Are you ready?"

_Nope. And never will be. _Scully thought, looking back down at her baby. But as she looked into her baby's eyes, she found strength. She found the reason why she was doing this in the first place, why she was giving up her miracle. She found there the strongest love she had ever known and the strength to continue on.

"As ready as I'll ever be."

~~~~~***::***~~~~~

The walk to the chapel was the shortest walk in the world—at least in Scully's eyes. She felt like one second she was getting up out of the chair and the next she was outside the chapel door, following the nun into the quaint little room.

There waited the young couple that was going to be adopting William. Wilma & Darren Parkinson. They were both smiling so widely and so happily it annoyed Scully to bits. Her world was falling apart, yet they had the audacity to be happy about it?

_They've been waiting a long time for a child, for a miracle…just like you waited for 3 years for William. And now, it's their turn to have a miracle._ The logical side of her said. And despite the fact that she didn't want to believe or listen to the preposterous things this voice was saying, she had no choice but to believe. The voice of reason was right; she had her miracle, now it was time to return the favour.

"I believe you two know each other." The nun both stated and asked the couple and Scully. All three nodded, the couple more excitedly then Scully.

"We've talked on the phone a couple of times and had lunch twice." Scully stated factually, like she used to when stating the wounds on a dead body.

"Yes, we all have. I'm so happy Dana has let us get to know her. It's a wonderful to know that our baby William has come from such a wonderful person." Wilma gushed, practically bouncing up and down in her excitement. Scully couldn't help but smile just the slightest bit. That's how she felt internally when she first found out she was pregnant.

"That's wonderful," the nun said, looking like she was faking the smile and kindness in her voice. It was clearly obvious to Scully that she was bored stiff, "I'm glad you guys have gotten to know one another. After all, every pair of biological parents that came through here felt much better knowing they were giving their babies a good home, and every pair of adoptive parents were pleased to know what they were up against…But enough of that. Mr. and Mrs. Parkinson have already signed all the paperwork for this…have you?" the nun asked Scully.

"Of course." Scully whispered, taking out her paperwork from within her trench coat. When she went to give the paperwork to the nun, she noticed the couple looked horrified at what she'd done. _Oh dear God, I just held the baby with one arm…I'm his mother! It's not like I'm going to drop him!_ She thought with a mental roll of her eyes.

"Yes, yes…everything's here. Great," the nun cried, giving another fake smile, "Now all there is to do is…the giving process."

Scully felt tears instantly swarm in her eyes. It was time. Time to…_Oh God…_she thought, looking down at William, _Oh my dear, sweet William…_

"I will always love you." Scully whispered lowly to William, so monotone that only he could hear. As if he heard and understood, William looked up at Scully and gurgled loudly, making Scully smile. She leaned down and gently kissed William on the forehead, and before she lost her nerve she quickly shuffled forward and held her arms out to the Parkinson's, offering her miracle.

Within seconds the Parkinson's took their new bundle of joy into her arms and left Scully's arms bare. As if suddenly sensing what was going on, William let out a long and shrill wail, one that reverberated around the room. _That's what my heart breaking must sound like,_ Scully thought sluggishly as she resisted her motherly instincts, _or at least it must be what my personal hell sounds like._

"Oh, there there, there there." The new mom whispered to William, who was still wailing in her arms. Scully's heart wailed just as loudly, but no one heard it. Except maybe William, but he was powerless to help his mommy.

Scully gasped for breath as she began to back out of the room. She couldn't hear this, couldn't do this…she had to leave before she did something selfish and stupid.

So she backed out of the room, but not without leaving a small present for her baby in the nun's hand. A small plush puppy. A toy that she and Mulder bought one day while shopping for food when she was still richly pregnant. They both decided it would be William's first toy. Mulder had a similar puppy when he was a baby too, so it seemed like fate that day. Now, she'd be damned if she left without giving her baby a taste of who his parents were.

After she left William's present with the nun, she wordlessly left the chapel. She walked through the halls like a ghost; empty. She never knew what it was truly like to be empty and alone until today.

It wasn't until she found herself at the staircase that led to the parking lot did she realized how much that emptiness, loneliness and tears were pressing on her, and she suddenly wanted to run away, get out, get away. So she could fall apart like she needed to and wanted to. So she ran down the stairs in such a pace that she was lucky she didn't fall and break her neck.

No, thankfully or regretfully she survived that trek, and now she was almost at her car. 5 feet from her car. A foot from her car. Beside her car. Her trembling hands were trying to put her car key into the lock. The key was somehow in the lock. The door swung open and slammed closed and somehow Scully got in the car. She sat in her car seat, staring into the pavement in front of her, on the brink of crying, on the edge of falling apart…

But it was a lost battle, because her wandering eyes rested on William's first shoe, which was hanging from her rear-view mirror. She put it there because William had outgrown it a long time ago and it was one of the first things she bought for her little miracle.

Suddenly, the tears that she had kept in check for so long suddenly came forwards with a vengeance, and Scully wept pathetically in her hands.

Scully wept until her eyes were raw, her nose dripping and her chest felt like it had boulders lying on it. If she was being totally honest, all she wanted to do was curl up in a ball, fall asleep and never wake up. After all, she lost her baby girl to a fatal disease, she lost Mulder to the truth and now she lost her beautiful baby boy to the bastards who have been threatening to hunt down her baby since the beginning. Who would really care if she just curled up in a ball and disappeared?

But Special Agent Dana Scully was not a quitter. Dana Scully, daughter of the strong and powerful Navy officer William Scully was _not _a quitter.

So curling up and dying was not an option, no matter how much she wished it was.

Scully sniffled and wiped her cheeks, blinking to adjust to being able to see again. She took a Kleenex and wiped her nose and finally, she took a sip of the water from the bottle on the dashboard. She was positive she looked like crap, but at least she was slightly presentable now.

She was looking into the visor mirror when she noticed them. They were exiting from the building. The Parkinsons and her baby boy—No, scratch that. The Parkinsons and their new baby. The new mom was beaming at her husband and looked like she slept with a coat hanger in her mouth. The new dad was beaming just as steadily but was talking to the baby in his arms. The baby, William, was playing with the little puppy dog Scully had given to the nun earlier and was smiling…the same smile that he had given her what felt like moments before.

She was barely able to stop the sob in her throat at the tiny family. That was supposed to be her, Mulder and William…not Wilma, Darren and William. This is not how Scully's happy ending was supposed to go. With her sobbing in her car with a couple walking off with her baby.

Yet, she couldn't help but feel like…this was meant to be. Like this was supposed to happen, maybe even since she found out she was pregnant at the hospital.

She also couldn't help but feel relieved. Relieved that her child, the one that she had fought so hard for, was going to stay alive and healthy. Was going to be able to ride a bike and play Battleship and eat junk food. Was going to be able to meet the love of his life and marry her and maybe even sprout out a few grandchildren for her…even if she never knew about them.

_And hey, maybe even one day…I'll see him again. Maybe I'll see him helping his mom shop at the grocery store or hang out at the mall with his first girlfriend or shopping for an engagement ring for his future fiancé…I'll probably see him again, someday. Somewhere in the future. And, hey, maybe even Mulder will be able to see him again._

That thought, the hope that maybe Fate isn't as cruel as she seems and will reunite her with her son again one day, brought a small smile to her face.

And so, after the new parents and William pulled out of the parking lot, Scully pulled out herself and to her empty apartment. She knew the next few months were going to be the hardest of her life, and most likely the pain of letting William go will never fully go away…but for now, Scully would be alright.

Because the thought of William growing up safely made all of it worth it.


End file.
